Dear [RECIPIENT],
The undersigned faith organizations are grateful for your public support over the years for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients. We are writing now to urge you and your colleagues to stand up for these and other members of our community who know no other home but this one.
Our organizations and religious denominations count DACA recipients and other Dreamers as beloved members of our faith communities. Our diverse traditions share a mandate to welcome the sojourner, to preserve family unity, and to speak up for those treated in ways that do not honor their human dignity.
In recent months, we have witnessed a deeply disturbing pattern of federal enforcement officials targeting, detaining, and attempting to deport DACA recipients. In response, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials have both alleged that DACA did not provide lawful status or protection from deportation and encouraged 530,000 active DACA recipients to self deport. This marks a significant departure from decades of practice. DACA recipients have routinely renewed their immigration status with immigration authorities. By defying longstanding DACA protections, the current administration is plunging DACA recipients and their loved ones into unprecedented fear and uncertainty, threatening to separate families and disrupt entire communities. Dreamers who would qualify for DACA, except for their age or time of their arrival, have also been impacted by current policies and experience unforeseen challenges to live, worship, and work without fear.
Many DACA recipients have been wrongfully targeted in recent months. Catalina “Xóchitl” Santiago, a longtime DACA holder who came to the U.S. at age eight and has renewed her protection every two years since 2012—with her current DACA valid through April 2026—was detained on August 3, 2025, at El Paso International Airport while traveling for work. Eventually, after nearly two months in custody, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone ordered her immediate release, ruling that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had violated her Fifth Amendment right to due process by detaining her without individualized justification. Paulo Cesar Gamez Lira is the father of four U.S.-citizen children and has lived in the country since infancy. Despite holding DACA status since 2012, immigration officials forcefully apprehended Paulo outside of his mother’s home and he was held in detention away from his wife and kids, the youngest of which is only months old and has serious medical conditions. Javier Diaz Santana, a deaf and mute DACA recipient who has lived in the United States for more than 28 years, was detained at a workplace raid. When he tried to use his phone to communicate with the agents, his phone was confiscated, and agents did not remove his handcuffs despite his requests to communicate via sign language.
Dreamers and DACA recipients embody perseverance, dedication to their families, communities, and workplaces and a vivid dream of belonging. As students, service members, entrepreneurs, and neighbors, they strengthen the economy, fill critical jobs, and contribute billions in taxes each year. Supporting Dreamers transcends partisanship; it is about leadership, fairness, and upholding the rule of law. Lawmakers have a strong case for backing legislative solutions that provide permanent relief through Congress, ending years of executive patchwork and creating stability for families and employers who depend on certainty. DACA recipients are woven into the fabric of the nation: nearly 35 percent are married, 37 percent have children (many U.S. citizens), and they collectively contribute tens of billions to the economy annually.
In Texas, South Carolina, and North Carolina, the percentage of the DACA-eligible population in the labor force that is actively employed ranges from 95 to 97%. The DACA-eligible population across Maine, Texas, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and North Carolina pays hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes annually and has a cumulative spending power numbering in the billions. Not only are DACA recipients treasured community members, lawyers, doctors, nurses, teachers, first responders, entrepreneurs, and fellow believers, but they also fuel the United States economy in meaningful ways.
DACA was only meant to be temporary relief for Dreamers. Congress and Congress alone has the power to end this uncertainty and provide Dreamers with a pathway to citizenship. Simultaneously, Congress must urge the Administration to uphold the protections DACA recipients receive. With courts challenging DACA’s future and proposals threatening to end it, with DACA recipients stopped, detained, and threatened with deportation, now is not a time for passivity.
The moral path forward demands hope, opportunity, and humanity. We urge you to speak out and act swiftly to urge the administration to reverse course on its enforcement against DACA recipients and to legislate real, lasting solutions for Dreamers.
Sincerely,
Signatures